Welcome to another chapter of Los Angeles Junior Times comics and funny drawings from May 1927! We start off with the comics of Morris Redensky, later known as Morey Reden (1912-1981). Morey animated at Disney, did animation and story at Famous Studios and worked a long time at Hanna-Barbera. He created the characters Hank Hambone and Jim Dandy (before Pal) for Aunt Dolly’s paper.

Here’s the other comic strips for the month of May, featuring the work of Louie Salkin (1913-1993, UPA, Disney), Frank Tipper (1909-1963, animator for Ted Eshbaugh-”Wizard of Oz” animator for Schlesinger and Lantz and painted B.G.S on the first Huckleberry Hound cartoons), Bob Wickersham (1911-1962, animator for Disney/Fleischer/Warner Bros., Director at Screen Gems-”Snap Happy Traps”, “Willoughby’s Magic Hat”, “Room and Bored”, developed the characters and drew comic books of the Fox and the Crow, wrote the screen adaptation for “Mr. Bug Goes To Town” with Cal Howard for Fleischer), Cal Howard (1911-1993, Directed “Katnip Kollege” for Schlesinger, did the voice of Gabby Goat in the Porky Pig cartoons, wrote the stories for “Snap Happy Traps”-Screen Gems, “Canned Feud”-Warner Bros., “Spookananny” and many others for Walter Lantz), Herbert Gramatky (Hardie Gramatky’s brother), Bill Zaboly (1910-1985, drew the comic strips Otto Honk and Thimble Theater), Isadore Ellis (1910-1994, animated on the Clampett classics: “Porky in Wackyland”, “Baby Bottleneck” and “The Great Piggy Bank Robbery” among others, also animated for Bob McKimson and Frank Tashlin at Schlesinger’s), Philip De Lara (1910-1994, animated on the Bob McKimson cartoons: “A Lad In His Lamp”, “A Fractured Leghorn”, “Early To Bet” and wrote the Daffy Duck cartoon “Quack Shot” for McKimson). So most of these boy cartoonists were 15 or 16 when they were published in the Junior Times.

Here’s a cover drawing that Bob Stokes did for the May 8th issue (1908-1980, animated on Bosko for Hugh Harman, for Ub Iwerks-”Humpty Dumpty” and others, for Disney, “Woodland Cafe” and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” among others). Hugh didn’t want to lose Stokes to Walt Disney, but admitted to me that he felt Stokes did great work on the character of Snow White, and thought him to be one of the great draughtsmen of animation. These Junior Times posts are a lot of work, hope you enjoy them! Next time, more comics!

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One Response to “Los Angeles Junior Times, May 1927”

Hi Mark. I find the Junior Times entries fascinating. Sometimes, the existence of a venue is the motivation for people to create. I wonder how much the Junior Times spurred kids to become cartoonists so that they could see their work in print?

It’s also interesting to me how many cartoonists were in the local area, ready to move into animation when the opportunity presented itself. What would have happened if Walt Disney hadn’t gone to L.A. or had succeeded in getting live action work? Would these artists have found something else to do or would they have gone into other occupations?

So many chance occurrences led to the golden age of animation in California.